


Growing Pains

by aranrhodinhimring



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Growing Up, Loss of Parent(s), Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3209492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aranrhodinhimring/pseuds/aranrhodinhimring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of interconnected vignettes following Sigrid as she grows up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sick Bed

When their mother fell sick, Sigrid tended to her. Da didn’t want her to but he had to work, and couldn’t be there always. Sometimes Auntie Bera would come and bring food and whatever teas she had managed to get at the apothecary, but she had her own family to tend to, although she took Tilda, more often than not. It still left Sigrid in their little house, listening to her mother trying not to moan with pain.

She knew the reason Da had asked her not to tend too closely was because he worried she would get sick too. She could tell that from the little lines that appeared between his eyes even then. But she also knew he didn’t force the issue because there wasn’t a choice, because she was the only one there who could do it. Bain was helping their neighbours with little things for the odd bit of coin, or else went to his cousins with Tilda, and Mam couldn’t be left on her own. The cough that had started weeks before as something small and hoarse had deepened until it settled right in the foundations of her chest. And there was more than that now, a fever and sores and a terrible ache that seemed to have taken hold of all her limbs and refused to let go.

It hurt Sigrid to watch her like this; sometimes she had to turn away to hide the stinging in her eyes, because if Mam saw then she would pull her close and stroke her hair, even though the breathless little gasps escaping her told Sigrid that it _hurt_ her to do it. Sometimes, hiding it meant that she had to take herself away downstairs and curl up under the thick wooden beams and stare down at the water while she panted her anxiety, heart pattering like a rabbit’s in her breast. Da found her there once, and it looked like he wanted to cry too. He didn’t, just settled in beside her and pulled her close, so she was tucked up under his arm with her face pressed against his chest.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have to do this.’

Sigrid sniffed and pushed her hair out of her face with clumsy hands. It kept coming out of its plait because she couldn’t really braid it herself yet, and Mam’s hands were twisted with pain, like the arthritic old women’s after too many years spent weaving fishing nets. She would teach herself, later, though Auntie Bera and her cousin Frida would help, and it would be she who taught Tilda, after years spent twisting it into simple three-strand plaits herself.

But she didn’t know any of that then, and instead she was left saying, ‘It’s alright, Da,’ even though they both knew it wasn’t.

Their Mam didn’t last long after that, and Sigrid was quietly, deeply glad that she didn’t pass when it was just Sigrid with her, that Da was there, and Bain and Tilda. She was glad she wasn’t alone.


	2. Swift is the Minnow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a fluffy little piece with Sigrid learning to swim with her Mam and Da on the outskirts of Laketown.

When Sigrid was four Mam and Da took her out to edges of Esgaroth, where the water was shallower, a little warmer and cleaner, and the sun hit it directly instead of sitting in the shade of the houses. Ma stripped down to her petticoats and Da pulled off his boots and shirt, and then they helped her to do the same. Even though Sigrid knew it was shallower, the water still looked dark and deep, and despite the warm day the water chilled her feet where they dangled over the edge of the berth.

‘I don’t want to,’ she had said, in her lisping young voice.

‘Sigrid, sweetling, it’ll be alright. We’re both here.’ Her mother laughed suddenly and ruffled a hand through her hair. ‘And you’re a Laketown lass - I’ve no doubt you’ll swim like a fish.’

Sigrid looked down into the water and her heart pattered, like it did in the dark sometimes when Mam and Da were both sleeping and the wind had set to moaning and the curtains cast strange shadows across the room, like the teeth of the dragon Da had told her about. Mam had tutted at him over that, said she wasn’t old enough. She swallowed and then Da was sliding into the water, till it sat halfway up his chest and he was holding his arms out to her.

‘Come on, darling. I’ll catch you if you’ve any trouble, and your Mam’s here too.’

She shuffled forward, let him catch her under her arms and pull her out until she settled into the water with a shivering, squeaky gasp at the cold. Past the chill there was an odd floatiness, like the time she had bounced onto Mam and Da’s newly-stuffed bed, except it was softer, and all around her. She kicked her feet out, and the water splashed around them, enough that even’s Da’s face was damp and laughing.

‘You’re learning already! Now kick your feet out like you’re running and move your arms like this.’ She did, and the water splashed less, though she could feel it moving and twisting round her feet still. And that was it, that was floating, that funny weightless feeling, and even though she could feel Da’s hand under her, reassuring, she pretended to herself that she was all on her own, swimming like a fish already.

‘Look, Mam! Look at me!’

‘I can see, sweetling!’

‘Come in with us!’

‘Hmm, I think one of us at least should be dry for the walk back -'

But she didn’t get to finish because Da was nudging Sigrid to hold onto the wooden struts, clutching with chubby, childish fingers at the boards, and then he was pulling Mam in with them. She shrieked and there was a flurry of fabric and then she bobbed back up, chestnut hair streaming down her face, trying to look angry but laughing too hard to manage it.

Mam joined them until she was too big with child, and when it came time to teach Bain to swim Sigrid helped, darting further out than Da was happy with, but Mam always called her ‘minnow’ and ‘otter’, and Sigrid loved to dive under the water until her lungs burned. After Mam died, when Da was busy with Tilda and Bain was trying not to cry, she took herself back off to the edge of the town and dived in and stayed under longer than she ever had before. When she came back up, gasping for breath, the whole world seemed different

**Author's Note:**

> Can also be read at my tumblr, more to follow soon I hope!


End file.
